23 Is the Loneliest Number
by SHL23
Summary: When you lose someone the way we lost him, anger is inevitable. Edward, Bella and Jasper struggle to cope with their loss, but the ones we love never really leave us. E/B, Em/Jas


**Disclaimer: Twilight and its characters aren't mine.**

**Warning: This fic contains language (angry Bella uses the f-word a lot), character death, dark themes and slash, though nothing graphic on any of those counts. And I promise it's not all doom and gloom.**

EPOV

I dropped my backpack off just inside the door of the apartment, closing it quietly behind me when I realized all the lights were off. Being in my first year of medical school at the University of Washington, it wasn't abnormal to be at the library until all hours of the morning. Even with Bella's demanding job as an assistant editor at Bennett & Hastings (being the bottom of the totem pole meant working the longest hours), she typically beat me home. Tonight, though, I was actually home at a decent time so I doubted the lights were off because Bella was already sleeping.

Then again, I never really knew what I was going to get when I came home to Bella these days.

I let out a long sigh as I placed my keys in the little bowl; it had been a long four months.

"Bella?" I called for her quietly, not wanting to wake her if she was resting.

Venturing further into our apartment I noticed the flickering light of Bella's laptop screen coming from the couch. Muffled voices reached me from the speakers. She must have been watching a video.

"Baby? You awake?" I stepped toward the couch, thinking she fell asleep there, but glanced around when I saw it was empty.

Bella's job, my savings, and my parents' willingness to pay for medical school meant that we could afford a decent apartment in the recently renovated part of the U District. Floor to ceiling windows in our living room had a great view of the bay. Currently, the views were obstructed by the dark silhouette of my gorgeous girlfriend. Even when her countenance was continually marred by sadness she was so damn beautiful.

In the same moment I moved to greet her, I heard the unmistakable belly laugh of Emmett. It froze me in my place. Bella's shoulders visibly hitched upward. It actually took me a moment to realize the sound had come from the speakers of her laptop. I half expected Emmett to come barreling out of the kitchen, yelling at me to keep my dirty paws off his baby sister.

Bella always rolled her eyes when he called her that. Though she was, in fact, his baby sister. By nine minutes.

No one ever believed them when they said they were twins. They were as different as night and day. Obviously, they were the opposite sex and where Emmett was on the tall and burly side, Bella was on the short and slender side. Emmett was loud and outgoing; Bella was introverted and preferred not to socialize much. But those of us who were lucky enough to count them as true friends knew their similarities. They were both fiercely loyal and loved wholeheartedly. They were uproariously funny when they wanted to be (which was more frequent in Emmett's case). They had the exact same inflection when they answered their phones. Plus, Emmett loved getting a rise out of the narrow-minded douches at our high school when he told them it was obvious they were twins because they both liked boys. God I missed the big oaf.

Anyone that really and truly looked at both of them would know they were twins. There were similarities in their features; the quirk to their mouths when they were amused, the high cheekbones that showed off Emmett's dimples and Bella's delicate nose and mouth. And they had the exact same, gorgeous brown eyes, alight with life and a little bit of mischief. It used to wig me out when Bella and I first started dating.

From the first day I met them in middle school it was obvious that where you found Emmett, you found Bella, and vice versa. They were connected in a way that defied typical sibling bonds. I used to joke that when Bella and I went on our honeymoon someday we were going to have to bring Emmett with us. This normally earned me a swift smack to the back of the head from both of them, but now I'd let Emmett stay in the same fucking room on our honeymoon if it meant he were here.

The sound of Emmett's voice pulled my attention back to the computer. I grinned when I recognized the video. It was Emmett and Bella's birthday last year. They both turned twenty-two.

Bella hated birthday parties; Emmett loved 'em. Of course, we all ended up going to Emmett's favorite karaoke bar. I thought Bella was going to kill him.

His booming voice echoed in the dark space of our living room.

"_Come on, sister! It's my birthday! Don't you want to sing me happy birthday?"_

_Bella sat on my lap at a table near the stage, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed at her twin brother, "Singing to you in front of a room full of strangers is the last thing I want to do on MY birthday."_

_Emmett pouted and I silently willed him not to force her into it. I did not want to be cockblocked before we even got home because Emmett had put Bella in a bad mood._

_Jasper, whose voice came from off screen as he was the videographer at the time, seemed to sense my plight, "Baby, don't make your sister sing if she doesn't wanna. It's her birthday too." Though the amusement was evident through his slight drawl. _

_Emmett shot a look past the camera, presumably at his boyfriend, before turning back to Bella with his patented pout face._

_Groaning, Bella dropped her head to my shoulder, "Aw, Emmy, don't give me that face."_

_I wordlessly handed Bella my untouched shot of tequila, already sensing she'd caved and she grudgingly took it, shooting it quickly while Emmett whooped and jumped up from the table._

"_I hate you," she grumbled._

_Emmett's grin lit up his face, "I love you, too!"_

Bella's shifting silhouette brought me back to the darkened room. She was sipping a beer and wiping tears from her cheeks. I moved to stand behind her, tentatively wrapping my arms around her waist as we both focused on the Seattle skyline.

"Do you want me to turn it off?" I asked her as I pulled her hair back over her shoulder, giving me access to gently kiss her neck.

This wouldn't be the first time she'd needed me to stop the videos for her. We were still in the process of going through everything and sometimes she couldn't bring herself to turn off the sound of his voice, to immediately cut off any connection she had left.

She shook her head tersely and we continued to stare out at the horizon, the sounds of that night a year ago the only noise to permeate the room.

"_Everyone give a big round of applause to my baby sister! We're twins and she doesn't know it, but I'm going to force her to sing karaoke on our every birthday for the rest of our lives! Love you, Bells!"_

Bella pulled out of my arms and startled the shit out of me when she threw her beer bottle in the direction of her computer. The bottle shattered on the wall.

"Damn it! You stupid, stupid fuck! You're such a fucking liar!" She pulled at her hair, screaming at the Emmett on her computer screen.

While part of me was scared seeing Bella lose control considering it had never happened in the six years we'd been together, another part of me was relieved. I didn't get my degree in psychology, but I knew enough about the stages of grief to know she'd have to deal with her anger eventually. Hell, after denial it had been the first stage I'd experienced when we learned that Jasper had come home to find Emmett had strangled himself playing the fucking fainting game.

I knew Emmett would always be a big kid at heart, but that shit was supposed to end in middle school. And even then we weren't dumb enough to do it alone.

"Of all the stupid fucking ways you could kill yourself! What the fuck were you thinking!" She moved toward her computer, which was still happily playing their birthday video.

On the screen, Bella and Emmett sat huddled together in their chairs, arms intertwined while they drunkenly laughed at nothing and did tequila shots. I was videotaping this time and Jasper stood at Emmett's side, running his fingers through Em's hair while Emmett slung his free arm low around Jasper's waist. Jasper and I shared a look over the twins' ridiculousness as they continued to crack each other up saying nothing at all.

In the next moment the computer was haltingly silenced, the screen flickering off as it broke to pieces where Bella threw it.

She picked up the heavy, stone coasters from the side table and began chucking them at the remaining pieces of her broken laptop while she yelled, "Was it worth it! Was it worth your fucking life, you stupid son of a bitch! Was it worth leaving Jasper alone! Was it worth leaving me alone! Fuck you, Emmett. I fucking hate you for leaving me!"

She collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor and I went to her, sitting on the floor beside her and pulling her into my lap. I couldn't say anything, trying too hard to keep myself from falling apart.

"I'm so angry with him, Edward. Why the fuck would he leave me alone? What the fuck was he thinking?" Her hands clung to my chest as her tears soaked my neck and shoulder.

I could only shake my head as I continued to hold her, "I don't know, baby, I don't know."

We sat there for an interminable amount of time, Bella still cursing her twin at every turn. At some point I quit fighting my own tears and we sat there together, crying angrily in the dark. In that moment I felt so desolate, so weak. I found myself wondering for the millionth time if my girl would ever be the same again. If I would ever be the same again.

We wouldn't. I knew this. I knew that our lives would forever be colored by the loss of Emmett, and the weight of that nearly crushed me. Sure, we would move forward. Life without him would start to feel normal. But every special event, every birthday, every drunken song in a karaoke bar would be tinged with the sad acknowledgement that Emmett should be there and he wasn't.

Eventually her tears, and mine, ran dry. "Why don't you go take a nice, hot shower and I'll make us dinner, okay?"

She nodded against my neck and I lifted us from the floor, standing Bella up gently and wiping at the tracks of her tears with my thumbs. I tried to think of something, anything comforting to say, but could only sigh when the words weren't forthcoming. I kissed Bella's forehead and gave her a gentle push in the direction of our master bedroom.

When she disappeared behind the bedroom door I moved to turn on the lights, squinting against the harsh contrast from the darkness.

Once in the kitchen I pulled out everything I would need to make dinner. Bella's phone sat on the counter where I chopped the vegetables and I assumed from its powered-down state that she hadn't had it on all day. I knew her parents would be upset if they couldn't get a hold of her all day so I turned it on for her. It began buzzing with voicemails and texts immediately.

Leaving the messages for Bella to check in her own time, I plated the spaghetti and salad I made and poured two glasses of wine. As I was setting the glasses next to our plates at the breakfast bar, Bella pressed up beside me, leaning up to kiss my cheek.

"Thank you," her tired voice reverberated through my every fiber. I just wanted to make the sadness go away.

Her phone rang then, pulling her from my side. We both knew from the ringtone that it was Jasper. No one else would have dared to program Willie Nelson onto Bella's phone.

JPOV

…"Hello?"

I fought to control my shaky breath at hearing her simple greeting. It was freaky how similar she and Emmett sounded with that one word.

"Happy birthday, darlin'," I fought to control the tremor in my voice.

I could hear her shaky breath as she tried to rein in her emotions, "Hey, Jazz. Thanks."

"How are you?" I asked her seriously. She would know from the tone of my voice that I wasn't going to accept her rote answer of 'fine.'

"Um," she cleared her throat. "I don't know. I broke my computer."

I laughed, not expecting that at all, "How and why?"

"Uh, I threw it and because I was angry." I could practically see her shrug her shoulders through the phone.

I continued laughing; sometimes she could be so much like her brother. "You're going to have to give me more explanation than that."

She sighed on the other end of the phone, "I dunno, Jazz, I just, I'm so pissed at him. I was watching the video from our birthday last year and he said he was going to make me sing god-awful karaoke on our birthday every year for the rest of our lives. And he lied. He's not here. He fucking took himself away from us."

I took a deep breath. Edward and I had both been waiting for her anger to catch up with her. My heart broke for her that it happened on their, her, birthday, but it made sense.

Heaven knows I still battled my anger with the boy every day since I came home to find the love of my life lifeless. I hated him for leaving me to find him. I hated him for leaving me.

We always talked about forever, we were meant to have a forever. What we got was just under three years. The son of a bitch robbed me of my lifetime and sometimes my anger consumed me. But at the end of the day, anger didn't bring him back.

I admit that my first reaction to Emmett's death was to flee back to Texas. Get the hell outta Dodge, so to speak. I thought it would be easier to cope if I didn't have to see the coffee shop where he first flashed me his cute dimples, or the flower shop where I knew he bought me flowers after our first fight. If I didn't have to look into Bella's eyes and see Emmett's staring back at me or hear hints of his giggle every time she laughed.

But erasing Emmett from my everyday surroundings could never make the pain go away. And the only thing more painful than missing him would be forgetting him.

"Bells, I will have no qualms with you if you decide you want to beat the ever-loving shit out of him for it when we get to the afterlife, but I know for certain he will do it right back to me if I don't keep his promises for him. Tell Edward to pour you a shot of tequila and then put on something pretty. We're singing karaoke tonight," I grinned, realizing this was exactly what we all needed.

I waited for a beat, wondering if she would take me up on the offer or choose to wallow in anger and self-pity. Of course, I'd never let her; Edward and I would drag her kicking and screaming if we had to, but I wasn't going to tell her that. Better that she choose the easy way herself.

She exhaled a long breath, "Alright, Jazz. I think I can do that."

She passed the phone to Edward and he and I hammered out the details. I called some of our other friends who were happy to join us.

I knew that it would hurt and it was likely that Bella and I would end up crying over our beers together at some point. I would inevitably want to rage at my beautiful man for taking himself away from me, and when I poured myself into bed at some unholy hour of the morning I would probably cry a river into his pillow. But at least he would be there, in the off-key singing of his twin sister, in the punch drunk way Edward would laugh over a completely unfunny story from his and Emmett's youth, in the tiniest amount of joy we would struggle to share over rebuilding our lives now, he would be there.

**AN: This is a later draft of my entry for the Love Lost Contest. I wasn't happy with it then and I'm still not thrilled with it now, but I really wrote for more therapeutic reasons than any other. Losing a friend this way sucks and I still find myself angry about it, so it was nice to write a little bit of that out.**

**Thanks for reading. If you have questions, just ask, I don't mind talking about it.**


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